HP, I’ll have a few more questions about this for you sometime, I’m not sure that I understand how best to do all of this stuff. It’s funny how I made it through two decades of education and never had something as simple as taxes explained to me … just goes to show how relevant the three R’s really are in our world.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf

what i do is have my employer take out almost NOTHING all year long, then in september i submit a new W-4 to have them take out enough for the entire year during the last 3 months of the year. the IRS is fat dumb and happy because they get what they require before the end of december, and i am happy because i kept all the money to myself all year and only paid in at the end. (this requires you to submit a new W4 form in january of the next year to take the withholding back down, so you submit it twice a year).

at a minimum, if you dont want to scheme that much, change your withholding to have them take out just enough to cover 90% of what your tax liability will be, that is all they require in order for you to avoid any penalties for not withholding enough.

What would you do if your mobile phone company automatically took money out of your paycheck every two weeks, guessing at how many minutes you were using, only to discover at the end of the year that they had taken out way too much … so they send you a check, acting like they’re doing you a favor. I don’t know about you, but I’d be insulted and upset.

I’ve gotten a tax refund every single year of the last decade … sometimes in the thousands. That’s a lot of “borrowed” money.

It was indeed complicated … lots of contributions, education credits, landlording details, etc etc etc … but the overriding factor, which I hadn’t really considered, was how little money I made in the four and a half months I worked in the states in 2007. The result? Without even deducting any of my rental property expenses, using all of my education credit, or taking advantage of my savers credit, I still had a total tax liability of zero dollars. That’s right … the feds are getting nuthin from me this year!

Well, except for the free loan they got as they held onto my cash all year. What a messed up system … give me my money back, you thieves!!!